It’s no secret that I like to read about the life of President Kennedy. I’ve posted several reviews about him. My JFK collection is around twenty volumes. In my closet, on a book pile that I dig into from time to time and found The Search for JFK, a 1976 book by Joan and Clay Blair, Jr. At 671 pages, my copy of this is a good quality hardback bought at a thrift store. When I found it, it was, I believe, the only JFK book in the house I hadn’t read.

This book covers JFK’s years in prep school, university, pre-war, World War 2, and the start of his political career, the years of 1935 to about 1947. While these years had been covered in other biographies and histories, the authors felt that something was missing, that the true facts about this period in the president’s life had not been adequately documented.

So they poured over what was available at the (then temporary) Kennedy Library in Waltham MA. They interviewed over 150 people in the years 1973-74. Just a decade after the assassination and three to four decades after the years covered, many people were alive and willing to tell the story of how they intersected with JFK’s life. This included classmates, military comrades, fellow politicians, relatives, and the many women he chased/dated. Not everyone would talk with the authors. Some refused to answer certain questions. Some gave interviews only by phone or in writing. But the authors doggedly persisted, and a story emerged.

The authors have dispelled three myths about Kennedy—successfully dispelled, in my opinion. Those are:

1. that Jack was a robust young man. Not true. His health was perhaps the worst of any president ever elected. Born with a bad back (forget the lies about football or PT boat injuries), frequently given to infections, requiring numerous and lengthy hospitalizations before he ever got to Congress, and finally beset with Addison’s Disease, Kennedy was a basket case, health-wise. His health should have disqualified him from serving in the armed forces, but his daddy pulled some strings.
2. that Jack was a dedicated and brilliant scholar. That JFK had a superior mind is beyond doubt. But he was no scholar. He lost a couple of years of studies to illness. He never attended two schools that most biographers said he did. His writings were primarily done by others. His “cum laude” Harvard years were anything but stellar.
3. that Jack was a war hero. I want to be careful here. As one who never served in the armed forces, I tend to think that all who did so should be considered heroes and deserve our respect and support. But what the authors have done is document the carefully crafted PR campaign that attributed to Jack things he never did, that glossed over the fact that the ramming of PT109 was likely due to Kennedy’s negligence—it was the only PT boat rammed in the entire war.  His hero status got him elected to Congress, which was never what JFK wanted. His father wanted it more than he did, and since the oldest son died in WW2, it fell to Jack to pick up the family’s political ambitions whether he wanted to or not.

Note that, while the book discusses the many women in Kennedy’s life, it does so in a discrete manner. Many other authors have covered his womanizing in great detail. I guess the Blairs decided they didn’t have to. The names of many are included; the reader has to guess at the nature of the relationships, or find another book to give the full story.

The book is well written and well worth the read. It is refreshing to read a JFK book that isn’t about the assassination. I’ve poured through enough of those. I do have one fault to pick, which is the authors used quotes a little more than I would have liked. I thought some of their selections didn’t actually add to the story. A little shortening of those and I’d be giving it 5 stars. As it is, only four.

But, is this a keeper? Will I ever re-read it? I’ve thought long and hard about this. I have a shelf full of JFK books. I’ve enjoyed reading them. While they all are history, a lot of that history happened during my lifetime, making it all the more interesting. But, in the spirit of dis-accumulation/decluttering/preparing to downsize, and given my age, the number of years I have left and the huge number of other books I want to read, I am unlikely to ever read these again and thus they have to go. Now that I’ve finished this one, I will list the collection on Facebook Marketplace and see if I have any takers.

And, I’m also not likely to buy any more. Well, maybe one I saw today on Amazon, if I ever find it used. Then no more.

I have a fairly good collection of books about JFK, most of them read, several reviewed on this blog. One I hadn’t read yet was Conversations With Kennedy. It’s by Benjamin C. Bradlee. At the time the events of the book took place, Bradlee was a columnist with Newsweek magazine. Later he would go on to be managing editor of the Washington Post newspaper, a sister publication, and gain fame in the Watergate era.

When JFK was a senator from Massachusetts in the 1950s, recently married to Jackie, he was a neighbor to Bradlee, a few houses away in the Georgetown area of Washington D.C. Similar in age, similar in political views, and from relatively the same social circles, the two men became friends. They met socially, sometimes with their wives, sometimes alone or with Robert Kennedy or others. At some point in the relationship, fairly early on, Bradlee began taking notes on their conversations, realizing they could well be of historical significance. This continued when Kennedy became president in 1961.

Now, this arrangement sounds unethical to me. How could Bradlee, who wrote on politics for Newsweek, sometimes on JFK himself, befriend the person he’s supposed to stay neutral on? He could pick up behind the scenes info that no other reporter could get. But, if JFK was his friend, could Bradlee really write objectively on him?

Kennedy knew what he was doing, however, and I’m sure cultivated the friendship to foster positive press. Sure, he probably genuinely liked Bradlee and his wife and children, but still, the relationship smacks of unethical behavior by both men. But should reporters and journalists be required to give up or avoid friendships just because of their jobs? I wonder.

The book is well-written. Most of the chapters are short, as the notes were not extensive. Bradlee is a good writer. The information is of importance in history and is worth knowing. I’m glad that I read the book.

I rate this book 5-stars. But is it a keeper? It’s a mass market paperback, cheaply made, and a few pages at the front are falling out. On the other hand, I have an extensive collection of JFK books. I think for now I will add this to that collection, but I’m seriously thinking of getting rid of them all, selling them as a lot. I have one more to read (I think only one), after which I may just sell them. So this will go on the shelf for a short time.